


Say It Like It Is

by ll_again



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-17
Updated: 2018-11-17
Packaged: 2019-08-24 19:06:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16646066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ll_again/pseuds/ll_again
Summary: Because when they say the words, it makes them true.





	Say It Like It Is

 

It's 2011 when Sherlock Holmes jumps off the roof of St Barts Hospital to his death.

Eight months and four days later, in an empty warehouse, he puts a bullet in Nicolas Olenski's skull. Throws up, twice. Fumbles a coded text to his brother on his burner phone. Throws up again. Waits for extraction next to a man who no longer has a face.

He's never killed anyone before.

The first seven months of his self-appointed mission have been the best kind of game. Picking apart Moriarty's web with brash dexterity, dropping smoking guns into the eager fingers of the local law enforcement, all while avoiding any suggestion that Sherlock Holmes was still alive. It was fun. If Jim hadn't shot himself on the roof, Sherlock could have kissed him for this gift.

But Olenski had upped the ante. He was key to a great many of Moriarty's operations, an anchor point in the web. And too visible, too entrenched to be ousted. Maybe before, when the name Sherlock Holmes had still had the power to bring respect to outlandish seeming ideas, he might have tried a premature return from the dead to take Olenski down. Now, there's no point.

Olenski was Moriarty's masterpiece – a criminal with no ties to his vast criminal enterprise. Sherlock couldn't dismantle Moriarty's network without stopping Olenski. And Olenski couldn't be stopped until he was dead.

It's the grand finale to Jim's tale. Turning Sherlock Holmes into a murderer.

Mycroft arrives with a small team and that same pinched look he always has when he asks Sherlock for his list. "I think you should return to London."

There's something he should say, some shallow invective like: _all that_ _fat_ _must have_ _migrated into_ _your_ _brain,_ _Mycroft_. Sherlock swallows. His mouth tastes like vomit. He doesn't speak.

"One night in a safehouse won't do any harm." Mycroft pauses. It weighs heavy in the dank warehouse. "If you think you can refrain from doing anything foolish, that is."

They return to London.

Sherlock brushes his teeth. Washes away the scum of living as a ghost. Dons a pair of jeans and a ratty hoodie that are a lifetime away from the Sherlock Holmes that anyone knows.

Across the city, Mycroft watches his little brother on a monitor as he slips out of the safehouse, heart unclenching when Sherlock turns towards Iselworth and away from all the places Sherlock has been known to score.

Sherlock has no thoughts of the false solace of a high when he picks the lock on Molly Hooper's front door and lets himself inside. She chokes back a gasp when she sees him. Tries to speak, but Sherlock dismisses the question before it forms.

He pulls her into his embrace. Presses his lips, hard, into the smooth squish of her cheek. Stays there, as if he's glued in place.

A sound leaves her, the barest whisper threaded between them. Carrying a name that he cannot own. Not yet. He wonders if he ever will again.

Sherlock puts two fingers against her lips. They're soft. A bit tacky from whatever balm she puts on them at night. The feel of it should be unpleasant, but he likes it.

Her arms loop around his waist. Sherlock holds himself rigid, awkwardly bent over, kissing Molly Hooper in the only way he knows how. He breathes harshly through his nose. Fills his head with the smell of London and Molly and home. All of it miles away – literally, figuratively – from a dirty warehouse in Eastern Europe.

He lets his forehead fall to her collarbone and his hands curl over her shoulders. She's damp – just out of the shower – and warm. Solid. He clutches her while he shakes.

"Oh…" Molly brushes her hand through his curls. Rocks them gently from side to side. "It's okay. It's okay."

It doesn't matter that she doesn't know what he's done. The words sink through his skin and buzz in his veins. Like cocaine, but better. Softer. Real.

Sherlock keeps his mouth shut and lets her says them over and over.

"It's okay, it's okay, it's okay..."

…

_It's the Christmas before he's going to die and Molly texts him even before he's made it out of the hospital basement._ It's okay.

_It's eight months before that when Sherlock finds her with the victim from his latest case, mouth set in a grim line as she double and triple checks evidence, making sure it can't be refuted. He puts his hand on her shoulder, tentatively. Tells her, "It's okay."_

…

It's 2014 and Molly Hooper comes to Baker Street, unannounced and minus an engagement ring.

Nearly before Sherlock's sharp eyes can register that detail, she barrels into Sherlock's chest and locks her arms around his waist. She is just tall enough for her forehead to reach his collarbone.

"I'm so stupid. I'm so-" Sherlock makes a noise of dissent. Molly clamps down, hard, on her words. Sniffles, loudly.

He touches his lips to her hair, feeling every cornsilk-soft strand slide against the sensitive skin while he shakes his head, still denying her assertion. Rocks them in place.

"It's okay," he says, in a voice like gravel and gasoline.

Molly inhales. The sound is damp, jagged. She starts to back away, but Sherlock won't let her go.

"I need a tissue."

He doesn't care if she gets snot on his expensive clothes. He wouldn't care if she managed to ruin them.

"It's okay." He gathers her closer. Spans a hand between her shoulder blades. Steadies her while she shakes as she soaks his shirt. "It's okay."

It won't be. In a few days, once he's put his plan into action. But right now…

"It's okay, it's okay…"

…

It's December 26th, just after midnight when Sherlock is finally allowed to wash the blood spatter off his face. Charles Augustus Magnussen isn't the second person he's killed.

Or the third. Or the fourth.

Big brother's goons escort him to a holding cell. Handcuff him to a chair. It's not much later when Mycroft turns up, lips pinched and not holding the keys to the cuffs. Sherlock knows what he's going to say even before he speaks – the substance of it, if not the details.

In sharp, short sentences, Mycroft outlines the arrangement. There's a pause. Then: "I've been authorized to allow you one visitor."

Sherlock's mind flies to a cozy flat in Isleworth. He thinks about pressing his lips to a pillow-soft cheek and cornsilk-smooth hair. He thinks about the horror on John's face when he'd put a bullet through Magnussen's skull.

He thinks that, this time, it matters that she won't know what her reassurances are meant to absolve. This time, he can't be sure what she'd say if she did know.

He thinks he's never really lied to her. Not about anything important. And he knows he won't be able to now.

Because it's not okay. Not this time.

"No," he tells Mycroft. "I don't want to see anyone."

…

_It's a week before he meets John Watson and Sherlock is on the verge of losing his flat, with nothing to his name but a bare-bones reputation that's already been sullied by addiction. Molly brings him a coffee, sets it at his elbow, and before she scurries away, says, very quietly, "It's okay."_

_It's a day earlier and Sherlock finds her in the lab standing in a puddle of smashed test tubes, red-faced and tears in her eyes as she surveys the ruins in dismay. He plucks her out of the wreakage, sets her on the counter and says, solemnly, "It's okay."_

…

It's 2015 and he's detoxing from the impressive concoction he and Wiggins cooked up.

Sherlock isn't sure if it's a testament to their chemistry skills or just his age, but this one is bad. Maybe the worst in almost two decades of off and on drug use.

He sleeps a little, eventually. When he wakes up, his throat's sore and his mouth tastes like vomit. Dried sweat clings to his skin like a film. Those are the smallest of his discomforts.

He's spread out over most of the bed. In the sliver of space that's left, there's a body curled away from him. Brown hair, soft and smooth as cornsilk, close enough he could stretch out his fingers just a bit and touch it. He doesn't dare try.

He's hallucinating. Must be. Molly hates him when he's like this.

She stirs. Turns over, bleary eyed, and mumbles, "Sh'lock? What do you need?"

She can't be real but he talks to her anyway. Because…

Because there's something his addled mind wants to say to her. He doesn't know what. So instead he says the only thing that he knows is true, "It's okay."

She makes a choked noise in her throat. Brushes back his damp curls with cool fingers. Reason wars with his senses. She feels real. Smells real.

Balance of probability that she's not.

His fingers itch. But he thinks – fears – that if he puts the tips of them to her pillow-soft cheek, she'll scatter away like smoke.

There's worry in those brown eyes – real or not. A furrow between them. It's a sight he hates to behold.

Mostly, he's hoping that this Molly is a hallucination. He doesn't want to think about what this is doing to her if she's not.

"It's okay," he tells her, because he can't risk it. "It's okay, it's okay…"

…

It's been weeks since he's been aware of the date when Sherlock stumbles out of the charred shell of his childhood home.

Hours after that, Sherlock washes the day out of his hair. Scrubs his face. Dons an ill-fitting, borrowed suit. All his bespoke ones are behind crime scene tape.

He slicks back his wet curls and slips down the hall of the hotel to the room where Mycroft's people have stashed Molly Hooper for the night. Fiddles with the master keycard he's swiped from housecleaning. Decides to knock instead.

Molly answers the door promptly, wide awake. Takes one look at him and lets him in.

Everything about her is flat. Limp. She doesn't smile and there's nothing in her eyes.

She opens her mouth. Her gaze is fixed at his collarbone.

"It's okay," she says in a voice like ash.

Sherlock's afraid to touch her. Terrified she'll crumble under the slightest pressure of his fingers. Like wood burnt down to cinders, all her strong fibers stripped away by the heat and flames.

But. Molly Hooper isn't built from mere wood. She's as solid as granite.

He brushes just the tips of his fingers down the strands of her hair. The swell of her cheek. His lips tingle.

He says, "It is okay," and it's the truth. Because he's never lied to her about anything important.

Still barely making contact, he puts his fingertips under her chin. His lips to hers.

"I love you, Molly Hooper," he says. "It's okay."

At those words, Molly's feigned stoicism breaks with a sob. It cuts into him, deep. Right through to the part he thought he'd been missing for so long.

"You-" She slams against him. Arms lock around his neck. Gasps, "Sherlock…"

He cradles her head in his palms. Thumbs pillowed on her cheeks, getting wet while her tears fall over them. "It's okay." He's a little breathless himself. But he knows, this time, what he wants to say and he says it. Over and over.

"I love you. It's okay. I love you."

…

_It's 2009 when Sherlock goes looking for the newly hired pathologist._

_He finds her in the loo next to the morgue, muffling her sobs into her bunched up lab coat. He's high – but just a_ little _, so he thinks he's alright. He wants to solve a murder. No one else will help him._

_He steps into the bathroom. Lets the door swing shut behind him. Digs through his pockets for a handkerchief and doesn't find one. Detours to a stall to strip off a wad of paper from a bog roll._

_He doesn't know why she's crying. He tries to tell himself he doesn't care._

_She only notices him when he crouches down in front of her and holds out the makeshift tissue. Her protests die in her throat when she meets his eyes._

_He doesn't mean to say them. The words just slip out._

_"It's okay."_

…

It's the day he starts living again and Sherlock's stretched out on the bed in Molly's hotel room. She's curled up against him. Both of them watching the sunrise through the open curtains.

Molly stirs. Rubs her cheek on his shoulder like a little cat. Content.

"Do you remember when we met?"

"Yes," he says, reluctantly. Because the memory is fuzzy, but by now he's learned enough to realize that he'd been a bit out of line by barging in on her in the loo and badgering her into fetching a corpse for him.

"Dad had only died the month before," Molly continues. "And I was having such a hard time of it. And then you-" She laughs. His stomach clenches. "Utterly bonkers, you were. But…"

Her voice softens. She fiddles with his fingers. His stomach clenches again but lower and blossoming with heat.

"You made it okay." She enfolds his hand between her small ones. He curves his fingers over, locking them together. "Anyone else would've tried to make me feel better- oh, that sounds awful."

Sherlock hums a gentle disagreement into her hair. Presses another kiss to those cornsilk-soft strands. Because he knows what she means to say, and that's all that matters. "I didn't care about your weeping as long as you didn't contaminate Bret Jeremy's corpse so I could solve his murder."

Molly snorts. "Exactly. But," her voice softens and turns thoughtful, "I needed that. You didn't mind me being sad, so I didn't have to pretend I wasn't. You were quite nice, actually."

There's no censure in Molly's words, but Sherlock still churns with guilt over all the times he hasn't been nice to her. She can tell – of course she can – and brings his fingers to her lips to press a kiss there.

Then she bites down, ever so gently, on his knuckle. Sherlock inhales sharply, his thoughts veering into an entirely different direction. Her aim achieved, Molly smirks against his skin and leaves one last kiss before dropping their still joined hands back to his stomach.

"You remembered," she says. "Bret Jeremy. I thought you would've deleted him."

Sherlock has to clear his throat before he can make words. "Hardly," he says, a little hoarse even so. "He was our first case together. I'll never forget it."

"It did turn out a bit exciting, didn't it?" Molly says, amused but not at all fooled by his romantic bluster. "Maybe even a seven?"

"A ten," he says and he means it. Because he's never lied to her about anything important, and now more than ever he realizes that meeting Molly Hooper was the most important thing to ever happen to him.

"Oh," Molly breathes. She can tell – of course she can – how serious he is. Sherlock tightens his arms around her, and she sighs, blissfully sinking even further into his embrace.

The sun creeps over the top of the London skyline, a great, orange ball of combustion and promise. They fall silent to watch.

When it's fully risen, Molly stirs and says, "You know, I think that's where I fell in love with you." She giggles. Slides against him, warm. Solid. Real. "In the bloody ladies' loo."

Sherlock lets his head fall back against the headboard. Tells his libido to bog off. For now. But for once, he's finding it difficult to get his body to obey that command.

Now isn't the time for carnal pursuits; they've already agreed on that. Right now they need _this_ , the thing they've always been best at, comfort and words. And eventually, some sleep, if either of them are going to be able to perform to any sort of standard.

"Don't tell John that story, for God's sake," Sherlock says. "He'll put in his best man speech."

He freezes as soon as the words leave his mouth. Unsure if he's got ahead of himself. Again.

Molly tilts her head back and up. Kisses the sharp edge of his jawline.

"It's okay," she says in a voice that glitters.

"We can just elope."


End file.
